


Responsibility

by PhoenixVictoria



Series: The Chronicles of Hallie Jordan [2]
Category: DCU, Green Lantern (2011), Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:29:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixVictoria/pseuds/PhoenixVictoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She lands on the training platform, a small box of belongings under her arm. Kilowag's there, beating up on some poor blue-skinned shmuck with four arms.</p><p>"Little lady!" he says brightly, allowing his enormous spiked club to disintegrate. "How you doing? Tailar-" he turns to his victim- "this here's Hallie Jordan!"</p><p>The unfortunate Tailar, face down on the ground, mutters something that is probably a greeting but could also be a fervent plea for medical assistance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She lands on the training platform, a small box of belongings under her arm. Kilowag's there, beating up on some poor blue-skinned shmuck with four arms.

 

"Little lady!" he says brightly, allowing his enormous spiked club to disintegrate. "How you doing? Tailar-" he turns to his victim- "this here's Hallie Jordan!"

 

The unfortunate Tailar, face down on the ground, mutters something that is probably a greeting but could also be a fervent plea for medical assistance.

 

"Hi, Kilowag," says Hallie, once she gets her breath back from his pat on the back. "I'm looking for Tomar-Re?"

 

He points to a building off in the distance. "That's Lantern quarters," he explains. "Tomar-Re's on the 175th floor." 

 

"Thanks."

 

She finds Tomar-Re's room easily enough, and knocks politely on the door, emblazoned with his name and sector number, 2813. The building is enormous, and from what she can see there are four Lanterns on each floor. Each fourth is separated by a hallway that opens to a large balcony and leads to a central nexus of four doors, spaced in a circle. Her "quarters" are probably bigger than every place she's ever lived in, combined and multiplied by two.

 

Awesome.

 

There's no answer. She knocks again.

 

"He's not there," says a familiar voice unexpectedly, and she whirls around with  a shriek.

 

Sinestro stands there, giving her his usual evaluating look. "You need to develop better reflexes," he announces. "I could have killed you with ease."

 

"Well fuck you, too," she snaps, pressing a hand against her heart and breathing deep.

 

He ignores her. "Tomar-Re is currently attending to a crisis in his own sector."

 

"Peachy." She drops her hand and straightens up. "Do  _you_  have any idea what I'm supposed to do first?" She takes a closer look at him. He's not wearing the traditional unitard and his lean muscles ( _down, girl_ ) are slick with sweat ( _down, girl_ ) beneath what is probably his planet's equivalent of a tracksuit. Looking behind him she can see a door labeled  _Sinestro, 1417_.

 

"You are allowed a week to put your affairs in order and move your belongings," he informs her. "We had assumed you would take all the available time."

 

"Yeah, well, you assumed wrong. Where do I put my stuff?"

 

"I will take you to your quarters once I have showered. You will wait here." He turns and walks inside his room. 

 

"Your people skills suck!" she calls after him. There is no indication that he heard. Arrogant asshole. She briefly considers trying to find her room on her own, and then trying to figure out how the hell she was supposed to do her job, but eventually good sense wins out and she puts her back against the wall across from Sinestro's quarters and slides down. Look at her, being all adult-like and mature. Carol would be so proud, once she finished pinching herself.

 

She hears voices coming along the hallway. On her finger, her ring gives a pulse. Shit.

 

"So this is the human," purrs the biggest one. He's another four-armed guy, only this one is green, with long, snakelike fangs and triangular pupils. He's gotta be eight feet tall.

 

"It's tinier than I expected," muses another. She's a cat on two legs, with sleek jaguar fur and awesome boobs. Her voice is throaty and sensual.

 

"Uglier, too," grunts a third. He looks like a stereotypical ogre from a low-budget fantasy film, except for the second pair of nostrils in his neck.

 

"Look who's talking," she snorts, not even bothering to get up. Parallax would eat these three for breakfast.

 

"Abin Sur's ring made a mistake," snarls the cat-girl. Either she's pissed off or she's coughing up a hairball. "Your inferior race is not worthy of a place among our ranks."

 

"Well, if the rings could make mistakes that would explain a  _whole_  lot," she says, running her eyes up and down the cat-girl's body. "But if you really doubt your mystical mojo, I suggest you take it up with the Guardians."

 

"We don't need to," says the four-armed fellow. "Not when a few lessons from us should send you scurrying back to the mud with the rest of your violent, unreasonable species."

 

She laughs. She can't help it- she's just defeated a psycho fear-demon and now she's back in high school.

 

"Mmm'kay, first off- not all humans live in mud, and when we do, we call it adobe. Second, how many humans have you spoken to?"

 

She doesn't wait for a response. "On second thought, I don't give a shit. However many humans you've known- and I doubt you've met any before today- you've never spoken to  _me_. And judging  _all_  people in a group on the actions of  _some_  of the people in that group is what we primitive humans like to call  _racism_ , and it's such an old, dumber-than-shit attitude that even  _we've_  managed to make it illegal. So you can take your  _lessons,_  and shove them up your  _asses_ , assuming you've got the brains to _find_  them, which I'm sure you could manage eventually if you use both hands and a flashlight."

 

The cat-girl almost blurs as she moves to kick her in the face. Her head snaps back against the wall and a kick from the ogre cracks two ribs on her left side-

 

"Enough!" The voice cracks like a whip- everyone skids to a halt.

 

"Wow," says Hallie. "You take  _really_  fast showers."   

 

He doesn't even glance at her. There is anger in his eyes. " _What_  is the meaning of  _this?_ "

 

"The human attacked us!" cries the cat-girl. "We merely offered her a greeting and she viciously assaulted us!"

 

He cuts his eyes at the other two. "Do you support her story?" he snaps. They nod vigorously. 

 

"Then you should know that I witnessed the entire thing," he informs them. All three of them get awesome, oh-shit looks on their faces.

 

"You three are a disgrace to the Corps," he says. "The Guardians will hear of your actions. Go."

 

"But-"

 

" _Go_." There's more of that quiet danger in his tone. They turn to leave.

 

"That's right, bitches!" she crows. "You better run!"

 

The cat-girl whirls around and dives back at her. The four-armed dude drags her away, clawing and shrieking, and a green-glowing construct wall from Sinestro (erected barely a second before her own,  _thank you very much_ ) stops the flying green dagger that almost hits her in the face.

 

She turns to look at him once they are gone. "I had 'em on the ropes," she says. 

 

He gives her a look like he's chewing over something. "Can you stand?"

 

She braces herself against the wall and slides to her feet, grimacing. She's had broken ribs before- the key is not to breathe too much. She probes at her cheekbone with her tongue, and crap, that's broken, too. 

 

"Who were  _those_  assholes?" she asks, to distract herself as she begins to move gingerly towards the box of her belongings. 

 

"Sylar Tarynn, Caila Balasdaughter, and Arak Sek'tash."

 

"They give that greeting to everybody?"

 

"No."

 

"They learn that attitude from  _you?_ "

 

"No."

 

She leans down to pick up her box, swearing as the movement does terrible things to her ribs. He leans down and grabs it for her. "I will stow this in my quarters," he informs her, striding to his door, presumably to do just that. "You may retrieve it once we have finished in the infirmary."

 

"You don't have to take me there," she says as his door slides silently open. "I would  _hate_  to subject you to my presence for any longer than I had to."

 

He gives her another one of those looks, like he's turning something over in his mind, but doesn't respond, dropping her box just inside his door. They walk in silence down one of the four hallways, not looking at each other. She's limping a little.

 

"Why didn't you say that to me?" he asks abruptly.

 

"What?"

 

"Why didn't you inform me that you thought me racist and stupid? When I interrupted your training."

 

" _Do_  you think you were being racist and stupid?"

 

"Answer my question."

 

She feels a sort of petulant glee in her response- "No."

 

He makes an irritated noise. When she glances at him, he's looking at her. "I asked first," he snaps. He sounds childish, and he knows it, and he's irritated by it.

 

She shrugs, grunting in an unfeminine manner when it pulls on her ribs. "Which would be a really important piece of information, assuming that I cared."

 

"You are being unnecessarily hostile," he observes. "Is it in response to the pain?"

 

She stops. Just comes to a halt, smack in the middle of the hallway. "Do you think you were being racist and stupid?"

 

He pauses too, looks at her. His jaw works.

 

"Why-"

 

"Do you think you were being racist and stupid?" She ignores the voice in her head that tells her he is a bad person to interrupt.

 

"You-"

 

"Do you think you were being racist and stupid?"

 

"I-"

 

"Do you think-"

 

"Yes!" he snaps. "I was!"

 

She waits. He looks pissed. She doesn't care.

 

"I was," he repeats, relaxing slightly. "It was wrong of me."

 

"That's  _not_  an apology," she spits. She's mad, mad that she just saved nine billion people and that bigoted idiots still look down on her.

 

"No," he says. "it was not."

 

Sinestro hesitates. She makes a 'get on with it' hand gesture. 

 

He rolls his eyes and looks down the hall. "May we continue? You need to go to the infirmary."

 

She folds her arms. "I'm not moving until you say sorry."

 

"I don't  _need_  to take you anywhere!" he snaps.

 

"And I would hate to be deprived of the pleasure of your company," she snips.

 

He gives her a distasteful look.

 

"C'mon Sinny," she coaxes. "It's not that difficult."

 

" _Sinny?_ " He's flabbergasted.

 

She shrugs again, carefully. "Sinestro's kind of a mouthful. Seriously, though, just repeat after me. I, Sinestro..."

 

She waits. He stares. " _Sinny?_ " he chokes out. He's probably killed people for less. The expression on his face is hilarious.

 

She waits. He takes a deep breath, through his nose, and lets it out slowly, like a zen master centering himself. He's probably trying to resist the urge to punch her in the face. "Your mockery is... unappreciated," he informs her. She gives him her best  _I don't give a shit_  look.

 

He gives a sudden, barely noticeable exhalation that is probably a sigh. "Hallie Jordan," he says formally, "I apologize for my racist-"

 

"And stupid," she interrupts.

 

His glare this time is scorching. " _and stupid,_ " he grits out, "attitudes. I have wronged you greatly. My views were both bigoted and inaccurate, and I apologize for my words."

 

"And for hitting me in the face."

 

He doesn't twitch. "And for hitting you in the face."

 

"And for being an asshole." He gives her a _look_. It's not a happy look. It's actually a downright  _scary_  look. Her gaze drops to the ground.

 

"Seriously, though," she continues after a moment. "It's not just humans. You can't judge anyone like that, it's not fair."

 

He nods, the slightest inclination of his head. "May we resume walking?" he enquires. She nods.

 

"You never did answer my question," he says as they start on their way once more. "Why did you not say this to me while I was..."

 

"Beating the shit out of me?" she asks.

 

He says nothing.

 

  
_Cause I was having flashbacks to the guys who tried to rape me three hours before that_. "You're a bit more intimidating than the Three Stooges back there."

 

"Three Stooges?"

 

"Right, you wouldn't have that on... where are you from?"

 

"Korugar." 

 

"Which makes you a...?"

 

"Korugarian."

 

"Cool."

 

They walk in silence for a few yards. She can see the balcony at the end of the hall getting closer.

 

"You punched Parallax in the face," he says at last, "but you were too intimidated to tell me I was being an idiot?"

 

She shrugs. "Takes different kinds of courage, Sinny. Plus... well. I was... surprised. At- everything. And- yeah."

 

"And yet now you seem fully capable of criticizing me. Mocking me, even." He says that last bit with a kind of awe.

 

"What can I say? I've come to some realizations lately."

 

"And I no longer intimidate you?"

 

"Not a bit." She's lying. Through her teeth.

 

"I can smell you lying," he says. There's no irritation- it's a statement, not an accusation. She's not sure how to respond. There's really nothing to say to that.

 

"So... you weren't exaggerating," she says at last. "With that whole, 'you reek of fear' thing."

 

"I was not."

 

"I'm not telling you."

 

"You were afraid," he says. "If a Green Lantern cannot overcome fear, even in a training situation-"

 

"I know!" she snaps, coming to a halt once more. "It was just- it was a bad time, that's all!"

 

"They cannot always be good times, Jordan!" he says. She feels the prick of tears.

 

"I know," she says, no longer angry. Just- defeated. "I know."

 

"So long as you do," he says, and they continue on.

* * *

Her quarters are enormous. Seriously. The main room is shaped vaguely like a triangle, with the outer wall lined with four bedrooms, six bathrooms, and an office. The rooms protrude from the wall at evenly-spaced intervals, and between them vaguely green-tinted light pours in through massive windows. She has her own balcony, impossible to see from anywhere else on the building, as well as her own kitchen (sleek, stainless steel, humongous) and the open floor space is peppered with couches, chairs, a long dining table and a short one in the kitchen corner for less formal occasions, as well as what looks like a hammock, not to mention the enormous boxes on shelves, constructed of something that can't possibly be glass, that Sinestro had explained (curtly, of course) were the T.V.'s and sound system.

 

She's definitely having a party, she decides, sprawling out naked on her enormous, satiny, bed. She's going to wait until she's met a few people here, maybe fucked one or two (and it can't just be Lanterns, 3,600 people do  _not_  need a whole planet) and then she's going to introduce everyone to Earth food, assuming they can digest it. She's not sure how that works, in aliens- Sinestro might know.

 

Sinestro. 

 

Damn, that man was a pickle. Haughty, yes, and cold, but she'd seen flashes of humanity (or... not) in him. Generally when he was beating the crap out of her.

 

She considers fucking him. He was sexy, in an long'n'lean kinda way, and that mustache- well, no. There really weren't many good things she could say about the mustache. He looked like a Bond villain that fell into a vat of grape juice.

 

Plus... he didn't seem the type. He'd say it was unprofessional and probably make some remark about the lack of wisdom of whorishness in general. He'd also probably yell at her for embarrassing the Corps.

 

Hmm. There was a thought. She rolls onto her back and opens her eyes to frown at the ceiling.  _Would_  it embarrass the Corps? She's fairly confident the cat-girl from this morning was fucking the four-armed guy- she's had plenty of experience with identifying jealous girlfriends, and she's tried to avoid being the other woman. 

 

She realizes, with a start, that she's actually thinking about this in terms of  _not doing it._  That if she concluded it would be bad for the Green Lantern Corps she would quit fucking random strangers. She would clean up her act, maybe even quit drinking (and she does drink a lot. Never laid a finger on drugs- if they didn't kill her, her mother would,  _creatively_ , but now that she thinks about it, it's probably not good for her liver.)

 

So... she rolls back and forth, restless, tossing her blankets around her waist. Should she stop? Does she even want to keep going, after what happened in the parking lot?

 

Well, yes. She likes sex. She likes men, generally. She's generally not afraid of men, though after the alley thingy she still sometimes gets nervous when she's alone with one. 

 

She hadn't been nervous with Sinestro.

 

Groaning, she rolls over, yanks the covers back up, and closes her eyes. She is going to go to sleep now. Too much introspection is dangerous.

* * *

Her father screams as he dies. She lies next to Hector Hammond in a filthy alleyway and he rolls over- "I warned you, Jordan," he whispers, and then he's on her, _in_  her-

 

She screams aloud as she wakes up, and keeps screaming until she realizes that the terrifying noise in the background is actually her.

 

She sits up, panting, and yanks on her clothes in a trembling fit. She grabs her ring and runs out the door, sprinting as fast as she possibly can down the dimly lit hallway until she can fling open the doors to the balcony and hurl herself off the side. She goes up until the air becomes thin, and then hovers.

 

Below her she can see the entire city, spread out like a blanket encrusted with jewels. There are lights everywhere, as far as the eye can see. She looks down at all the people, living their lives, loving and hating and wondering and fearing, and slowly her trembling eases.

 

She can't go back to sleep, though. To be honest, she isn't sure she'll sleep ever again. She considers the things that will make her feel better.

 

  
_Mom._  Well, that's out. Judging by her biological clock, it's about two in the morning back on earth. Not that it would be terrible to wake her- she doesn't go into work until twelve- but she'd worry, and ask questions, and pick and poke and prod and hang on to the topic like a dog with a bone.

 

  
_Carol._  She's probably curled up in bed with Tom right now, dead to the world, that peaceful little smile on her face, the one she only gets in his arms. It'd be a crime to get rid of that smile.

 

  
_Sex_. No. Just... no.

 

  
_Violence._  Well. That wasn't a bad idea. She opens her eyes- she hadn't noticed they were closed- and dives downward. Hopefully the gym Sinestro'd said was beneath the training platform was open nights.

* * *

She'd only meant to find a punching bag and hit it until her knuckles bled. Unfortunately, someone else had already had that same idea.

 

She enters the gym to find Sinestro, shirtless, beating the shit out of a sparring robot (he'd mentioned those in the infirmary) that obviously must have done him great personal harm. He's dead silent- the whole room is dead silent, apart from the smack of flesh on padding. There's something just teetering on the edge of wild about his movements- every kick and punch is expert, methodical, perfectly placed, but there's an- an-  _urgency_  to them, an adrenaline-fueled tremble that gives the impression it's not the robot he's seeing when his blows land.

 

As she watches, the lights that simulate eyes in the bot's head go out- it drops limply to the floor in parody of unconsciousness. He kicks it, breathing heavily, and when it barely moves, he kicks it again.

 

Then he whirls around, presumably to stomp out, only to draw up short as he sees her.

 

There's something wild in his eyes, and she very nearly flinches as she sees him- his eyes are lit up enraged green and his lips are peeled back over his pointed teeth and his pointed ears are plastered to the side of his head like an angry cat, but when he sees her all of this drops off his face to bury itself beneath a guarded expression.

 

He looks at her. She looks back. The silence is very loud.

 

"There a name for what you were just doing?" she asks.

 

"It is  _Ar-Kolu Ghana,_ " he says. "The Middle Path."

 

"The middle path between what?"

 

He looks at her with annoyance. Her lips twitch.

 

"Why are you awake?" he demands. 

 

"I can't sleep," she says with a shrug. "You?"

 

"I... frequently come down here," he says. "At night. I prefer having the gym to myself."

 

She nods. They stand in silence for a moment.

 

"Where'd you learn?" she asks. 

 

"As a child I mastered the basics. Abin Sur taught me the more complicated forms."

 

"Should  _I_  learn?"

 

"You do not have to."

 

"Will Kilowag teach me?"

 

" _Ar-Kolu Ghana_  is too... acrobatic for someone of Kilowag's size, and requires too much flexibility for members of his species." He pauses. "Caila Balasdaughter offers private lessons to fellow Lanterns."

 

She snorts. "Yeah,  _that'd_ turn out great."

 

His lips twitch.

 

"Will  _you_  teach me?" she asks suddenly, without even pausing to consider what she's asking. Her mom would have a heart attack at her rudeness.

 

He looks genuinely startled. "You can afford to take classes on any inhabited world," he says at last. "You could hire your own personal trainer, even."

 

"That's not a no." She looks him right in the eyes. He holds her gaze, and then breaks eye contact and walks over to where a towel and water bottle rest on the mat.

 

"Why me?" he asks, back to her.

 

"Why not you?" she asks. "If you don't want me to disturb your private beat-up-inanimate-objects time, just say so."

 

"I do not want you to disturb my time," he says, still not turning around. She shrugs and goes to walk out.

 

"Why do you want to learn?" he asks suddenly. She turns around to meet a guarded blue gaze, and weren't those just green a second ago?

 

There's a lot of ways to answer his question, and a few of them involve profanity, but in the end she goes with the simplest (or the most complicated.) 

 

"I can't sleep," she says.

 

He gives her his little evaluating head-cock. She gives him one right back.

 

"In that case," he says, something changing around his mouth to make him look pleasantly surprised, "we will begin- now. Take off your shoes."

* * *

She limps to the door at eight the next morning to find him standing outside, looking fresh as a daisy.

 

"What the fuck?"

 

"Your profanity is highly unprofessional," he says. "A Green Lantern should comport herself with more dignity."

 

"Fuck you!" she snarls, and slams the door in his face.

 

Last night had been something of a disaster. She'd been flexible enough to impress even him, ("it comes in handy," she'd purred with a wink, and he'd grimaced) but he'd forced her through push-ups and sit-ups until she could barely move, and then produced a pad that fit over his hand for her to attempt to punch. She could barely even see straight at this point, and her constant stream of cuss words had caused him to give her a blistering lecture on professionalism, gratitude, and her own incompetence and physical fragility, whereupon she'd turned the air blue with pointed criticisms of his ancestry, intelligence level, and personal hygiene, thus putting a seemingly permanent end to last night's sort-of truce. She'd almost oozed out the door at four in the morning, and very nearly slammed into a building trying to return here. "I expect you back tomorrow night!" he'd called with something that sounded very like cheer.

 

Oh, she'd go back tomorrow night, all right. She'd go back tomorrow night and the next and every other night after that until she'd learned enough to kick his purple balls up between his ears!

 

"Open this door!" he orders.

 

"Why?"

 

"Open the door, Jordan!"

 

"Not till you tell me why!"

 

There is silence for a moment, and she can almost hear him taking a deep breath. "The Guardians require your testimony on the matter of Tarynn, Balasdaughter, and Sek'tash," he grits out. "If you will accompany me..."

 

She flings the door open. "Gladly," she spits. They walk (or he walks, she limps) down the hall towards the balcony.

 

"You appear distressed," he notes, with scorn. Bastard. "Do you require a night off?" 

  

" _No_ ," she snarls.

 

He does not respond.

* * *

Her three attackers get something that sound kind of like community service, and all three offer her heartfelt apologies. Caila even offers her a hug, her right hand... paw... thingy... pressing right over her formerly fractured ribs, that had been healed in about two hours by the magic light thingy in the infirmary but are still tender. She squeezes right back, of course, and tells her that they should get together sometime and compare nail tips. Caila beams a bright, false smile to match her own and agrees.

 

She goes to see Sinestro, of course, at two again- she'd set an alarm but nightmares woke her up anyway. It's just as messy as it was last time. Tomar-Re comes back the next day, just for a short visit, and she goes to see him. He enquires after her family and her health, and expresses concern over the attack by Caila and the others (Kilowag's already volunteered to kill them for her- she  _thinks_  he was kidding) before he breaks the bad news to her. 

 

See, it turns out he has this big crisis thingy in his own sector. And that he really won't be able to take a break and help her learn her stuff for a while now. And that she can pick any mentor she wants, but the person who knows her sector the best- indeed, the person who's own sector borders her own- is-

 

"You're shitting me."

 

"No, I'm afraid not."

 

She goes to see Sinestro the next night feeling extremely pissed and kind of embarrassed, because she's already asking the jerk to teach her Arcola guava, or whatever you call it, and she's starting to feel like that annoying younger sibling that follows you around all the time demanding hugs and candy. But it turns out he's anticipated her request.

 

"You mean... you'll do it?"

 

"You seem surprised. Kindly close your mouth, the sight is unpleasant."

 

"No shit, Sherlock, I am surprised. Also,  _you're_  unpleasant."

 

"Sher... lock?"

 

"Right, you don't have that. He's like this super-smart detective who solves crimes and shit. I was being sarcastic."

 

"Kindly desist your profanity."

 

"Fuck you."

 

He sighs. "Why are you surprised, Jordan?"

 

"Because I annoy you."

 

"That is true," he says, "but the citizens of your sector will depend on you for help. In the interest in offering you the best possible training, for their sakes, I am willing to put aside emotions- as  _you_  should learn to do."

 

"Why do I get the feeling you're talking about more than just putting up with me?" she asks suspiciously.

 

He fixes her with an irritated look. "Your actions regarding your attackers have been both immature and reckless. Caila could have killed you after you antagonized her- and she comes from Baghara, a planet where your words would have been considered a reasonable killing offense."

 

She looks him right in the eyes. They're green again. "I'm not gonna knuckle under for shitheads, Nessie," she says. "Not even when it's dangerous."

 

"Then you are a fool," he says, and she can't really argue with that.

* * *

He takes her up to the wormhole that leads to Earth. It's about an hour's trip to her home planet from Oa, which is nice- according to Kilowag, some people have to travel almost two days.

 

"This is the Bacardi wormhole junction," Sinestro says. "it is called a wormhole junction because it leads to many different places, depending on the speed and vector at which one enters it. Your ring is already programmed for the vector required to take you to Earth, but concentrating with sufficient focus upon another destination, something that may prove-" his lip curls-" _difficult_ , for you, should allow you to emerge there instantaneously, or rather, several seconds before you left here."

 

"Freaky."

 

"It's basic physics."

 

"Still freaky."

 

His hand reaches towards her and she ducks instinctively. He gives her a disdainful look. "A high block would be much better suited to deter me, were I attempting to strike you, though given your reflexes you may be better off surrendering if you lose your ring."

 

"Maybe my reflexes are slow because you're so boring," she snaps back. 

 

"That makes no sense. Once again, you demonstrate-"

 

"Just show me the fucking vectors, okay Sinny?"

* * *

He guides her through her sector.

 

"That is the star Kats-wan," he says, pointing. "It is unusual in that it possesses five inhabitable satellite planets, though only three of them actually developed sentient life. The three races then colonized the other two planets."

 

"Cool," Hallie says. "What's that one?"

 

"That is Dravidus. One inhabitable planet."

 

"I take it that's more typical?"

 

"Indeed. The presence of more than one inhabited planet around the same star tends to cause... problems."

 

"What sort of problems?" Hallie looks at him. There's an odd sort of expression on his face- not happy, exactly, but- comfortable. Like he's doing something he was always meant to do. It's freaking her out.

 

"Well, primitive cultures have a tendency to worship their celestial bodies as gods," he points out, and if he was a different person she'd call the tone in his voice avid. "Even in societies that have advanced beyond polytheism- or, indeed, advanced beyond religion altoghter- "  _unlike yours_ , his tone implies"- the presence of an entire new species living on the face of your ancestor's deity tends to cause discomfiture. Also-"

* * *

When the tour is over- they've been gone four hours, and they haven't explored a tenth of her sector- he takes her back to her room. 

 

"Wait here." says Sinestro as they stand on her balcony. He shoots upwards. She goes inside and makes coffee.

 

"I instructed you to wait," he snaps from outside her door. 

 

"Must've missed that bit," she says, gulping from her favorite WORLD's BEST PILOT mug, the one Carol gave her for her birthday. "Want some coffee?"

 

"No," Sinestro says. "We have business to attend to."

 

"Does it have to be attended to on the balcony?" She looks at him, at the way he's hovering outside her door. "Are you a vampire or something? Do you need an invitation?"

 

"I realize manners may be something of a foreign concept to you, but on Korugar it is considered impolite to enter another's domicile without permission."

 

"So that stick up your ass is a species thing?"

 

His glare is poisonous. She looks away. "Come in," Hallie mutters.

 

He glides in. She realizes she's still in her green unitard and wills it away, reappearing in comfortable sweats.

 

"This," says Sinestro, tapping a large metal box that he holds under one arm, "is the complete history and geography of your sector, as established by the Green Lantern Corps, as well as a brief description and photograph of every alien race we have contacted to date. Abin Sur's video logs are contained within. You, too, will be responsible for keeping up-to-date logs in the event that you are killed in the line of duty."

 

"Seiously? We have to do paperwork?"

 

He glares. Wisely, she shuts up. He explains how to do a log, shows her how to operate the video clips, and leaves her with strict instructions to memorize everything in the box. 

 

"You're joking, right?"

 

"Do I  _appear_  to be joking, Jordan?" He's giving her that look again, the disgusted, the I-can't-believe-you-can-be-this-incompetent look, and she bites her lip and then glares back.

 

Well, shit. 

 

"I will see you tomorrow at two," he tells her, and leaves.

* * *

Her very first mission is responding to a distress signal sent from an interstellar merchant convoy set upon by a group of pirates, whose species she recognizes as Kor-dan Filaret, of sector 1073, belonging to one of the newbies. She's almost trembling, but her voice is calm as she tells the pirates to drop their shields and cool off their impeller nodes  _now_ , before she blows them to smithereens, which she'd be only too fucking happy to do, thank you very much.

 

"Very professional terminology," notes Sinestro when she tells him the story later. They've begun sparring- they're taking one of their breaks where she sprawls gasping out over the mat and he gives her disdainful looks.

 

"Oh shut up," she says. "It was awesome." No way this dickhead is going to take away her achievement.

 

"Did they fire at you?"

 

"Yep!" She props herself up on an elbow. "That was even awesome-er!"

 

"More awesome," he says.

 

She groans, slumping back down. "Honestly, Nessie, do you have to be such a grammar Nazi?"

 

"Your pop culture references have yet to become intelligible," he says, but there's something there that's less assholish and more amused than there would have been four weeks ago. 

 

"That wasn't pop culture!" She wags a finger at him. "That was  _history_."

 

"Fascinating." He stands. "Get up."

 

She groans. "Help me up, teach?"

 

He just  _looks_  at her, and she grumbles to herself as she stands. "You're such a  _jerk."_  


 

He gives her another irritated look, but his lips twitch.


	2. Chapter 2

Somehow (and she has  _zero_ fucking idea how this happens) they end up spending time together. A  _lot_  of time. She supposes it starts with business- teaching, of course, and combat training- but they also need to cooperate on a lot of stuff over the border- the interstellar drug trade, for one thing, and the slave trade, which she  _hates_. Oh,  _god_ , does she hate it. 

 

It's actually due to the slave trade that they end up cooperating for the first time.

 

"Jordan!" Sinestro barks one morning about a month later as she's groaning her way out of the gym. She's probably got some impressive bruises on her stomach from all the times he kicked her, and her arms will be mottled black and blue tomorrow from the times she managed to block. That's probably a good thing, which is sad.

 

Hallie turns around, almost swaying with tiredness. She hasn't slept much in the past few days. "Yeah?"

 

He studies her. "Sit," he says. She sits. It's really more like falling. 

 

"Why do you look so exhausted?" he demands. "Have you not been setting aside adequate time for sleep?"

 

"What are you, my father?" She's pissed. He can definitely hear it and he can probably fucking  _smell_  it, and she doesn't care. Does he think she's out partying or something?

 

"No," he snaps, sitting down in front of her, "but I require an answer nevertheless."

 

"Fuck you."

 

"Jordan!" he shouts.

 

"Fuck you!" she shouts back, and ordinarily she wouldn't dare snap at him but-

 

"Why have you not been-"

 

"Shut up!" Hallie doesn't mean to say it, but it just pops out of her mouth, and he looks at her as if he has never been told that in his entire life. Maybe he hasn't.

 

She swallows at his expression. It's you-disgust-me mixed with how-dare-you, and she can't decide whether she wants to hide from it or claw it off his face.

 

"Jordan..." he grits out.

 

She looks down. "A few days ago," she snaps to the floor, "I got a tip from one of Abin Sur's informants. He wanted to know whether the same arrangement would work for us, and when I checked Abin Sur's files and he showed up I told him yes. In return, he gave me the location of a ship carrying "genetic slaves," whatever that means, and-"

 

"Whatever that means?" There's disbelief in his voice.

 

She looks up. 

 

"You do not know what genetic slaves are?"

 

" _No_ ," she spits. "I  _don't._ "

 

He ignores her tone with the kind of lofty superiority that makes her want to punch him. "The genetic slave trade is the practice of genetically engineering individuals to be-"

 

"I don't care what these idiots use to justify their greedy, stupid-ass perversions!" she shouts. "I don't want to hear about it, I want to  _stop_  it!" 

 

He stops and looks at her. "Jordan," he intones, exasperated, "if you want to stop  _anything_ , the first step is understanding it."

 

She bites her lip.

 

"The genetic slave trade is the process of genetically engineering individuals to be more suited to performing certain tasks, and then cloning them. There are various companies-"

 

"What sort of... tasks?" interrupts Hallie.

 

"Feats of strength, mostly, though the largest industry is in sex slaves, mainly women." There is no emotion in his tone- he might be discussing the weather.

 

"There are various companies known to dabble the genetic slave trade, including Agrash Kolgrim and Trina, but the main producer is Drogonus, based in the Slovek system. Finish your story."

 

She's been looking at him- now she shifts her gaze to the floor. "I found the ship. I scanned the transponder signal- they were squawking a Thanagarian message carrier, but it was too big of ship to be one, so I told them to drop the shields and cool the impellers. They spaced the cargo."

 

He goes still, not that he'd been all that fidgety before.

 

"They were carrying four hundred," she says tonelessly. "I found the logs later. I saved two hundred and fifty-three."

 

"Nightmares?" he asks emotionlessly.

 

She snorts. "I haven't been sleeping long enough to have nightmares, Nessie. I've been going through Abin Sur's old notes, and the genetic slave database, trying to find anything on Drogonus."

 

"You should have asked for my help," he says quietly.

 

She's startled. "It's my job, isn't it?"

 

He disregards this. "I will help you find them," he announces, and it's not a promise, it's a statement of fact.

* * *

And they do find them. It takes almost two months of tracking ion trails and following transponder remnants, not to mention shifting through a shit ton of space garbage ("it smells like something died in here!" "Perhaps you should be more concerned about the  _nuclear waste_ , Jordan-") but they eventually find the star system where the slaves she had failed to save were bred. It's a small, hot, damp, miserable planet orbiting a wimpy-looking red dwarf ("Jordan, it's gravitational capacity is more than-" "It's still wimpy-looking.") called, ironically, Liberty. 

 

They take out the orbital defenses easily enough, and she doesn't even care that she's just killed people. Then they move on some of the outlying settlements, first taking out the command centers and then making a faux announcement summoning all guards to the assembly room. Sinestro handles the ones still watching at the walls (not that they'd been doing a very good job) while she floats down from the ceiling and lands on the platform in front (she thinks that's a whipping post, she can see blue stuff on it) in all her green-unitard-ed glory. One of them in front lunges at her- she puts a glowing green spear through his stomach. 

 

"Anyone else wanna try?" she asks, and her voice does not tremble, not even when the blood comes out his mouth.

 

They go to the main encampment after freeing the slaves and shoving the guards in the slave's former prisons, and it's apparently here that they make the sex slaves. She's washing out the whip marks all over the back of a young girl (ninety percent of the slaves here are younger than ten- they get shipped out when they're "trained") when Sinestro parades the last few people in charge past the table in the mess hall on the way to the freezer. They're all wearing glowing green handcuffs- and how the hell does Sinestro manage to make three separate constructs? She can barely manage one- and the one in the lead, a monstrously flabby green man with pointed ears, spits on the ground in front of the slave girl.

 

"Whore," he says in a whiny voice, and the girl flinches.

 

Later she will only remember the taste of copper on her tongue, the strange heat in her knuckles, and the warmth of Sinestro's arms, wrapped tight about her stomach as he pulls her away.

 

Gently.

* * *

And it's not like she _likes_  Sinestro. Or that he likes her. In fact, both of them actively dislike each other, a ton, actually, and she only tolerates him because she has to, and because he's fun to torment. She's learned that most of her double entendres will make him flush just the teeniest bit of a darker shade of magenta, which is awesome, and if he occasionally says something cutting that leaves her speechless or makes her laugh, then that's the risk she runs, isn't it?

 

"Tell me about Korugar," she says one morning, after they're done sparring. 

 

"That is a very broad topic."

 

"I'm sure you can figure it out."

  

"Probably," he muses, looking down on her as if he's considering something. Then, apparently making up his mind, he unfolds his legs from their weird Lotus-like position and lays down next to her. She doesn't react, worrying, oddly, that movement will frighten him off. 

 

"It is a mountainous planet, for the most part," he tells her, gazing at the ceiling. "Our buildings are contoured to the fit the shape of the earth. There are many massive trees, larger than one of your skyscrapers and covered in clinging vines, that we build buildings and plant crops on." 

 

"Cool," she says. "Like in  _Avatar_."

 

" _Avatar?_ "

 

"All right, that's it," she says, scrambling to her feet, because seriously, half her insults involve pop culture and when he doesn't understand them it pisses her off. "Get up."

 

"That expression on your face typically heralds great physical harm," he says.

 

"It does not."

 

"That time on Caracalla." 

 

Hallie winces. "Let's... not talk about that, okay?" She'd ended up with twelve broken ribs and a concussion, and she'd been on bed rest for three full days. Sinestro stopped by every four hours or so to yell at her.

 

He glares at her, sitting up. "Yes, we will talk about it," he snaps. "We will talk about Caracalla, we will talk about Joraigne, and we will talk about Montagnon, where you almost got  _both_  of us killed-"

 

"Well if you'd listened to me when I said the governor was up to something-"

 

"If you had bothered to come up with anything even remotely resembling a plan-"

 

"If you'd actually  _done_ something instead of sitting around the room  _thinking_  for four hours-"

 

They bicker all the way to her apartment, where she pops in  _Avatar_  and forces him to eat some popcorn ("it has valuable religious significance, Sinestro, and if you refuse to eat it I will never be able to speak to you again." "Of course it does.") and somehow  _Avatar_  dissolves into  _The Avengers_  ("You understand this is an absurd premise, yes?" "You're a fucking space cop with a magical ring that lets you create stuff out of green energy." "...you may have a point.") which dissolves into the rest of the Marvel movies.

 

"Why do you find this Tony Stark so amusing?" he asks nine hours later. They need to go on patrol in about twenty minutes. "He is highly irresponsible."

 

"He was in the beginning," she argues, sprawled out across the couch. "in the end he, you know, took responsibility for his company's actions and started trying to make a better world."

 

"No, in the end he ignored the directives of his government and confessed to untold amounts of property damage."

 

She snickers. "That, too."

 

"Then explain," he asks, leaning forward avidly. "Explain why you like him," he says, and it sounds innocuous, but there's something... deeper, underneath it.  _Explain why you like him,_  he says, but what he really means is  _explain how you work._  

 

(She's noticed that about Sinestro- he likes puzzles. He likes something he can pore over, something he can ponder with his brow furrowed and his long, strong fingers curled before him. Something he can think about, and then straighten out methodically into a nice, logical order. He likes mysteries, too- whenever they work together on something (and that's been happening more and more often as they keep getting results, which should not be happening because they spend half their time bickering) he always wants to gather clues, to spend time discussing things and examining paperwork, as opposed to her inability to sit still, reliance on gut over logic, and desire for straightforward enemies to fight and exchange quips with.)

 

"Well," she says, and his oddly intent gaze is making her nervous, "at the beginning of the first movie, he was a selfish dickhead who never really looked at the bigger picture. He didn't... think."

 

"I would expect this to endear him to you," says Sinestro. He's sitting on one side of her enormous couch, and she's curled up at the other in a camisole and sweats- she can't quite reach him with her foot so she flings a pillow at him. He catches it.

 

"Go on," he says, and it's not an order.

 

"Well, he... got better. Sure he went through some horrible shit, but eventually he became a hero- a good guy. A genuinely good guy. And that- strikes a chord with me. And that whole "man-whore-reforming-himself-for-a-good-woman" thing? I like that, too."

 

"That is unrealistic," Sinestro says. "It is unlikely he will ever be able to change his entire lifestyle around immediately for one woman."

 

"That's not true," she says with a frown. 

 

"And you would know this how?" he asks with a condescending eyebrow raise. "Do  _you_  have a man?" 

 

"No," she says, glancing away. She'd been leaning towards him, passionately, but now she sits back. "But if I did, I wouldn't- I'd be- I'd quit sleeping around." And then, desperate to change the subject (she's never been shy about discussing her sluttish tendencies, and quite a few of the things she's said to Sinestro could be interpreted as come-ons, but this non-agressive way of talking is freaking her out)- "What about you?"

 

"What about me?"

 

"Do you have a man?"

 

He gives her his usual glare and she smirks. "No," he says with heavy sarcasm. "I don't have a man. I also don't have a  _woman_."

 

"Swing both ways, huh? That's cool. I'm kind of a one-trick pony, if you know what I mean, but I once had a threesome with-"

 

"If you are quite finished-" His voice is dry and sardonic as usual, but he's blushing and it's fucking  _adorable_.

 

"Awww..." she pouts. "You don't wanna hear how Horsey Harry got his nickname?"

 

He changes the subject, with considerably more skill than she had done earlier. "As you have shown me some of your human entertainment, it seems only fair that I show you some Korugarian."

 

"You're inviting me to spend time with you?"

 

"Only so I can be sure you are not destroying public property elsewhere," he retorts, and he's never gonna let her forget about that fountain, is he? 

 

"Sure," she says. "Tomorrow? Sixish?"

 

"Six fifteen," he clarifies, and leaves.

 

So they end up eating Korugarian food, which is kind of like Greek. She's not the hugest fan of the meatless entree ("vegetarianism is a vastly more healthy diet than your current greasy slabs of dead animal, Jordan." "We feed rabbits this stuff, Grumpy-pants-") but for dessert they've got these little honey-cake things covered in this weird stuff that's not quite frosting and not quite yogurt, and she has like ten of those. And the first movie they watch (his favorite) is phenomenally dull, so she spends it watching his expressions, which are not dull. At all. And then she complains about the main character, and he actually laughs, and she decides he needs to do that again. Like, a lot.

 

And then somehow it becomes a regular thing, Fridays and Saturdays, the two of them together in each other's apartments, whining about each other's movie choices, even when they actually like them, and somehow she can tell when he actually doesn't like them and when he's complaining just to start an argument. And then they try books, and he can't stand her Janet Evanovitch novels and his history books make her physically ill, but she'll sit on the couch for literal hours and listen to him read poetry, even though she whines about it being dull and he bitches at her for interrupting, and he devours the Harry Potter series like it's going out of style. And then music happens, and he can't stand her rap music but he dances around the apartment with her screaming the lyrics to Florence and the Machine's Bedroom Hymns and mocking her "lunatic gyrations." And then somehow they're actually seeking out things the other person might like, and she hands him a college world history textbook and his eyes light up like green stars, and he introduces her to their version of Marvel and she brings the comics home to Jason when she's done. He tells her a little about being an anthropologist and she rags on him for being a nerd, and she tells him about being a pilot and he rags on her for being reckless. 

 

She tells him about her dad, one night. He bakes her more honey-cake thingies.

 

She calculates his birthday based on the Korugarian year, the Earth year, and the Oan year (the math ends up confusing her, so she makes Carol and Tom help) and on March 26 she gets to the training room early and sets up a table with cake, candles, and three wrapped presents- a coffee mug reading UNIVERSE'S GRUMPIEST ANTHROPOLOGIST (he'd stolen her WORLD'S BEST PILOT mug months ago, after they'd spent four hours arguing about the sentiment of it not being technically correct, and replaced WORLD with UNIVERSE) an iPod of his favorite earth songs (the ones he would admit to tolerating, and the ones she could tell he liked) and a small, souvenir-sized replica of that fountain she'd destroyed in Samoaad.

 

He calls the entire custom of birthday's illogical, criticizes her choice of cake, tells her candles are a fire hazard, grumbles about the cup, rolls his eyes at the fountain, and says that iPods are so technologically backward it's a wonder they aren't run by coal, and she never stops grinning at his obvious delight.

* * *

She takes time off for Thanksgiving, and goes home to her mother's large, new, house, which is large and new because it turns out that Green Lanterns get paid a shitload of money and have plenty of experienced hackers that can set up fake companies that are apparently paying her millions to test-fly jets in the Congo, and these hackers are also good enough to hack into her mother's account and deposit enough money there to buy several houses and possibly a yacht, and because she completely ignored her mother's (very loud) objections to this, because she is a terrible, terrible person.

 

Carol and Tom come over for dinner, and Jack and Janice and Jason, and Jim with his wife Shelby, and she's curled up with her old cat Springsteen on her lap, telling Jason the cleaned-up version of her adventures with Sinestro on Ha'al Rakith, when Carol asks "So what's up with you and this Sinestro guy, anyway?" and everything gets quiet, and Hallie doesn't think about the answer.

 

"Something's  _up?_ " asks Mom with raised eyebrows.  

 

"Nah," says Tom, shaking his head. "She'd have told you if there was something  _up._ "

 

"No she wouldn't!" interrupts Jim, sprawled out across the couch with his head in Shelby's lap. There's not a lot of room for him, as she's heavily pregnant. "Remember, we didn't know she was dating that biker dude in high school until we caught them making out on the couch?"

 

Jack shakes his head. "They weren't dating, they were-" he glances at Jason. 

 

"Fucking," finishes Mom bluntly.

 

"Mom!" yells Jack. "Jason's right there-"

 

"David Bardowski?" asks Carol pensively. "You know, I think they  _did_  date."

 

"Buying her dinner before screwing in a car does not count as a date-" argues Jack.

 

"In that case, sweetheart," says Shelby to her stomach, "Your daddy took me to get  _pizza_  for our first-" 

 

"Shelby!" yelps Jim. 

 

"Wait, really?" asks Janice. "You two did it on the first date?"

 

"You took her to get  _pizza_  for your  _second date?_ " asks Tom incredulously.

 

"And I thought I raised gentlemen," says Mom to the ceiling.

 

The doorbell rings. No one notices.

 

"It does so count," says Carol. "He bought her food. They ate in the same restaurant, at the same table. Doesn't that make it a-"

 

"Hell yes," says Shelby. "When did you two-"

 

"I was a college student! I blew all my money on the  _first_  date!"

 

"Never thought I raised a lady, though," Mom continues. "I'm not that willfully blind-"

 

This time, the doorbell rings twice. 

 

"There wasn't any emotion involved, though-"

 

"Fourth date-"

 

"Yuck, Mom-"

 

"So you got  _pizza?"_  


"The boys, though, I had hopes for them-"

 

The doorbell rings loudly and incessantly.

 

Mom groans and stomps over to fling it open, only to stop short at the sight of the person on her front porch. 

 

"Holy shit," says Mom.

 

"I see Jordan's propensity for profanity is an inherited trait," says Sinestro, and without Hallie's permission her lips pull back in a grin.

 

They end up fighting off a squad of Arconian conquerors from a small planet in the Dega quadrant, and even though she whines about missing Thanksgiving she kind of has fun until a stray piece of debris from an exploding impeller node hits her in the ribs. She insists on returning to her family, but he insists on returning with her and carrying her inside ("put me down, jerk-off!" she says, but the muscles in his neck and arms are standing out and she shouldn't find biceps quite so sexy when they're fucking  _pink_ ) and then Mom insists that he stay for dinner, and no one says no to mom.

 

Dinner's kind of awkward at first, with no one being quite able to look away from Sinestro and his purpleness, but then Jack starts talking about politics, which is generally a no-no when they have company (and at this point, Carol and Tom don't count) and then Shelby, a liberal Democrat to his and Jim's conservative Republican, decide to weigh in, and then Sinestro asks for a description of the government system.

 

"Jordan has informed me that your figurehead is called a president, and the history books she has procured me go into significant detail about the three branches, but her knowledge of the current political clime is... somewhat lacking. Could you perhaps tell me-"

 

And then things basically dissolve into a free-for-all, with Carol and Shelby shouting over Jack and Jim and Jack and Jim shouting back and Janice and Mom yelling at all of them, and eventually Jason and Hallie get caught using spoons to flick potatoes at everybody else when they're not looking (that ginormous gob really was not meant to splatter quite so loudly across a carefully listening Sinestro's face) and as everyone goes dead silent he opens his mouth to give a blistering lecture before he suddenly stops and  _smiles_ , (which is scary as  _fuck_ ) and then green energy encases the back of her head and the bowl of mashed potatoes and  _splat_!

 

She jerks her face up at him and stares through the mashed potatoes on her eyelashes. He looks completely horrified with himself, though her (traitorous!) mother is looking at him with something close to hero worship.

 

"I-" he says.

 

A glowing green hand upends the entire pitcher of gravy on his head. He makes a choking noise. Then more silence.

 

"Foooooooooood fight!" yells Jason, and seizes a bowl of cranberry sauce, the contents of which he flings at his uncle Jim. It hits Carol, and things degenerate from there.  

 

"I don't believe you did that," she says later, when they're all eating desert after thoroughly scrubbing the dining room.

 

"Neither do I," he says, taking another bite of pie. "You are a terrible influence, Hallie Jordan."

 

"Can I ask you a question?" she asks.

 

"I believe you just did," he answers, like she knew he would. He's smiling though, and it's such a nice smile.

 

"Why don't you ever just call me Hallie?" she asks. "It's always Jordan, or 'you imbecile' or my full name. You're welcome to call me Hal, everyone does."

 

He looks away. "On my planet, first names are for family," he says, and then, a touch awkwardly, "or lovers. They are not even recorded in the database."

 

"So Sinestro is your..."

 

"Last name."

 

"And only your family calls you by your first one?" 

 

He nods, and she realizes (though no one else would notice) that he's suddenly gone stiff. She wonders why, which leads her to- "hey, I don't know anything about your family."

 

The minute sideways jerk of his head screams  _that was intentional_. He says nothing.

 

She briefly considers not asking. Very briefly.

 

"Tell me about them," she says.

 

He still says nothing.

 

"Come on, you've met mine. Yours can't exactly be crazier."

 

There's no one in the room with them. He looks around as if seeking a distraction, and there's something so genuinely worried about his movements that she puts a hand on his shoulder. He's warmer than a human (she's noticed that about him, but it's never been quite so obvious before) and his shoulder is rock-hard beneath her fingers, from muscle and tension.

 

She swallows. "Is it that bad?"

 

He takes a deep, not-quite-shuddering breath. "Jordan," he says, "I will tell you this only once.  _Never ask me about my family again._ "

 

He gets up and walks into the kitchen.

* * *

He finds her later that night, back on Oa, pummeling the shit out of a hanging punching bag.

 

"The bag," he says, "is not a worthy opponent."

 

"Fuck off," she pants, and hits it again. Her knuckles are bleeding despite the tape she'd wrapped around them.

 

He ignores her, walking onto the mat and taking a fighting stance. She ignores him.

 

"Have I offended you, Jordan?" he asks in a cool voice, and she wants to slap him. 

 

"Nope," she spits. "Haven't offended me at all. Made me realize something, in fact."

 

"Made you realize..."

 

"That you're a cold bastard who doesn't care about anyone but himself."

 

She can see him go still, not that he was moving.

 

"Is that what you think?" he asks, and there's that quiet danger, back again.

 

"Yeah, that's what I think." She gives up on the punching and starts peeling the tape off her knuckles, swearing as skin flakes off.

 

"Have you any other bits of wisdom you'd care to share with me?" he asks, with exquisite politeness.

 

"Yeah," she snaps. "Yeah, I do. You're a heartless son of a bitch incapable of opening up to anyone. You're shitty at interacting with normal people, so you keep them away by being a dick. You don't give a flying fuck about me beyond being annoyed by my very existence, and  _apparently_ , we're not friends!" 

 

She shoves past him on the way to her water bottle and he snatches her arm in a bruising grip and yanks her back in front of him without exerting the slightest amount of effort. She meets his eyes and they're  _black_ , a dead, icy black she's never seen before.

 

"You don't know anything," he says, and his voice is almost shaking. Almost. It's always "almost" with this fucker.

 

"Oh yeah?" she spits. "I know your favorite color is blue, even though you said it was green. I know your favorite book is that stupid biography of Hanav and your favorite movie is  _Love Actually_  even though you say it's absurdly romantic. I know when you're lying and I know when you're mad. I know when you're trying not to smile and I know how to make you laugh. But apparently I don't get to know anything you don't want me to know, even though I told you all about my dad." And that's the sticking point- she'd showed him part of her soul and he wasn't returning the favor.

 

"Jordan-"

 

"Actually, Sinestro-" and it's probably the first time she's ever used his full name- "I'd like to spar after all."

 

She rips her arm from his grip and takes up her usual stance. He doesn't move. She lunges at him and he almost blurs, moving to slam her into the floor with him sprawled out on top of her. The breath goes out of her with a whoosh.

 

His eyes are inches from hers and dark. His thick forearms are braced on either side of her head. He smells like something clean and spicy and strange, but he also smells like man, and she realizes, belatedly, that she'd really like him to fuck her through the mat.

 

His nostrils flare as he catches the scent produced by this next train of thought. She feels something hard against her right thigh for a split second, and then he's up and facing away from her, breathing slowly and steadily.

 

"You shouldn't fight when angry," he says a while later, still not looking at her. "Your style is haphazard enough as it is."

 

"Yeah." She sits up.

 

"You have not been entirely honest with me either," he says quietly. 

 

"Yeah," she says again.

 

"What is that saying you use so frequently?" He inquires of the wall. "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours?"

 

She laughs tiredly. "You first."

 

"My parents were- well, my father was- a politician. A good one, or, well. A successful one." His tone doesn't waver. "They were- phenomenally- uninterested in having children. The only reason they did not abort me when my mother became pregnant was because a reporter noticed her being sick at an event and stole her glass to run a DNA scan."

 

He pauses. "I was informed of this at age three."

 

Her fingers grip her ankle. 

 

"They were careful to keep me out of the public eye, except for at events, where I could sit on their laps and hold their hands. I loved events for only that reason. I was raised mainly by a rotating succession of nannies and tutors, none of whom were particularly interested in me. When I was seven years old-" his fingers begin to work at  his shirt. "I made the mistake of telling a reporter at a fundraising event for a local hospital that I had not received anything as a gift for one of our local holidays. My father-" he tugs his shirt off- "was... angry."

 

She swallows hard. Her fingernails are digging in to her ankle, so hard she bleeds. Scars that look almost like whip marks spread across his entire back, interrupted by the occasional round burn.

 

"He had me by the hair," he explained. "He always grabbed me by the hair, it's a sensitive zone for Korugarians. It was never sadistic, not really, and never for no reason. He treated it like- like an appointment. Like an inconvenience. When he wasn't around and I made a mistake- ate with the wrong utensil, got a bad grade- my mother would lock me the basement for days on end. There were no windows. I used to think I'd gone blind. I'd scream down there, sometimes, until my voice was hoarse. She didn't feed me."

 

His voice is matter-of-fact- a simple recitation. She wants to kill something with her teeth. Instead she reaches out to touch his back, gently. The scars are rough beneath her fingers. He doesn't flinch.

 

"When I was thirteen, my teacher found a bruise. My parents were arrested. I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle, neither of whom wanted me, and my cousins, who wanted me even less. There was a large trial, at which I testified. This was brought up again frequently when I became a Green Lantern."

 

He turns to her, her hand still on his back. "Your turn," he says.

 

"Oh," she blinks. "Well. It- it isn't as shitty as yours was."

 

"Thank you," he says wryly.

 

"Um- when I was eight my dad died, you've heard this. But- the nightmares- I still have them. Less since I became a Lantern, but- they're there. And, um... we were really poor. And, when I was fourteen, I went on my first date, with a boy who got me drunk and fucked me in his mothers car."

 

Her eyes are closed. She's lying back. "And, um, when Carol was in college- we went to a party. And- I got a doctored drink. And I got- um... raped. By- someone. Multiple someones, actually. And I told everyone I didn't remember anything, and I don't, not really, but I have these dreams, sometimes, about- stuff. Shit. You know." 

 

Her hand is still on his back, smooth where there are no scars. She can feel his breathing speed up.

 

"And- um- before the bubble grabbed me I was- in a parking lot. And a bunch of the guys from work grabbed me and they tried to- you know. And then, when you were kicking my ass- you were just too close, you know? It was all too early."

 

He lays down beside her, catching her hand in his warm one. "I do not return to Korugar, now," he tell her. "No one calls me by my name."

 

She almost asks what it is, but chickens out. 

 

"Can we sleep here?" she asks instead.

 

He scoots closer to her, which is weird because Sinestro does not scoot. "I want to kill them," he says to the ceiling. "The men who... hurt you. Including your date."

 

"I want to kill your parents," she says to the inside of her eyelids. "And your aunt. And your uncle. And your cousins. Your whole family, really, I'd like to torture them to death."

 

They look at each other, and then for some reason both of them burst out laughing.

\---------------------------------------------------------


	3. Chapter 3

She's walking, painfully, down the street. The rubble of the warehouses and the destroyed escape pod smoke gently in the background. She thinks she's in Chicago- the skyline's fairly unmistakable. Hallie knows that she really shouldn't be walking right now but she can't quite muster the willpower to get off the ground. 

 

She needs a doctor. She needs stitches and bandages.She needs a cheeseburger. She needs a shot of vodka. She needs a bottle of vodka. She needs a  _barrel_  of vodka.

 

She needs Sinestro. 

 

The ambulance and the press van screech up at the same time. The man with the camera jumps out first and gets right in her face. 

 

"Who are you?" he demands. "What are you? Are you the same person involved in the helicopter crash last year? Are you responsible for this devastation? What-"

 

"If you don't get that fucking camera out of my face," she informs him, "I will set it  _on fucking fire_."

 

He stares at her for a moment. Then the nurse from the ambulance bustles up. She's the no-nonsense type of plump older woman that reminds Hal of her mom.

 

"The hell you doin' walkin' on that thing?" she scolds, snatching Hallie by the arm that doesn't dangle and tugging her towards the ambulance. "I don't care if you are some sorta alien robot, you are goin' to the hospital right away-"

 

Alien robot?  _Really?_  It probably makes more sense than the truth, but  _really?_  

 

"I'm not going to the hospital," she says. "I'm fine."

 

"Like hell you ain't!" She's almost dragging her now, the camera still focused on her.

 

"Look," she says, twisting her arm away from the nurse. "If you wanna patch me up a bit, you can, but they've got medical shit back at headquarters that'll fix me up in like five minutes, so I really only need-"

 

The nurse argues, of course, but eventually she ends up sitting on a cot, the nurse perched on the back of the ambulance, listening to the wailing of the sirens. It's early morning and the sky is gray. She lets her unitard split down the back, and the nurse hisses when she views the mess that is the shrapnel. She wills the energy-fabric off her legs, too, and the blood runs down to puddle beneath her. Every movement burns. She lets her mask drop (it's useless anyway, she's dripped DNA all over the street, and the government has to have it on file from all the drug tests they make pilots take) too, and the reporter zeroes from her legs to her face. 

 

Then the nurse gives her a shot of morphine and starts going at it with tweezers.

 

"Ow," she says. "Ouch. Oh- oh shit. Ouch." And because she needs a distraction- "hey, asshole reporter guy. You got questions?"

 

"Tons," he says. "What's with the suit? Why-"

 

"One at a time, please," she says, trying not to sound like she's begging.

 

"Well... what's your name?"

 

"Hallie. You can figure out the last name later, it won't be hard." 

 

"And... are you human?"

 

"Yeah. Fuck!"

 

"Oh, quit whining," says the nurse scornfully, dropping a piece of bloody shrapnel the size of a house key at her side. "You sound like my granddaughter."

 

"Are you the same person on video at the Ferris Air party?"

 

"On video, huh? Gotta love twelve-year-olds with iPhone''s." 

 

"Preach it, sister," says the nurse.

 

"Is this some sort of hoax?"

 

"If it was, would I tell you?"

 

"Gotta ask. How did you obtain your powers?"

 

"With this." She holds up her ring. "I'm told it's not actually magic, but science has never been my forte."

 

The camera zeroes in on her middle finger. She leaves it obligingly held up.

 

"And where did the ring come from?"

 

"A dying pink alien gave it to me. Shouldn't I be, like, explaining this to the government first? Do you know how to get an audience with the U.N. or the President or some- shit!" She cranes her neck around. "Your drugs suck  _dick!_ "

 

"Face forward."

 

"Shouldn't  _you_  know all this?"

 

"I'm new, okay? I'll have to ask around, every planet I've been to so far already knew about us."

 

"Us?"

 

"The Green Lantern Corps. We're- space cops, basically. And-"

 

She sees the green blur in the outer atmosphere and she can't quite hide the grin on her face as her ring pulses in recognition.

 

"Uh oh," she says.

 

"What?" asks the reporter, looking around nervously.

 

"It's my... partner, I guess. He'll be pissed."  _Really_  pissed.

 

Sinestro lands with a thump that creates a crater four yards wide. He storms over to her, newly arrived EMT's and firemen parting before him like the Red Sea.

 

"Five minutes," he snarls, stalking up to her. "I leave you alone for five minutes and  _this_  happens!"

 

"Hey, Nessie," she says. "What are you doing here?"

 

"It's Friday," he drums out. "You were late. I came looking. Is her shoulder dislocated?" This directed to the nurse. 

 

"I think so," says the nurse. "It could just be-" Sinestro reaches for her.

 

"Don't you dare!" shrieks Hallie, flinching back. "Don't you-"

 

He snaps her shoulder back into place with a sickening crunch.

 

"Mother _fucker!_ " she screams. He barely dodges her kick in the balls. "You asshole! You son-of-a-bitch-prick-bastard!" 

 

"What happened?" he demands. "Stop using profanity!"

 

" _Fuck_  you!" Tears drip down her face. The camera is capturing every moment in what is sure to be glorious HD.

 

"How did you incur these injuries? Why have you not returned to Oa?" He rounds on the nurse. "Why have you not given her something for the pain?"

 

"I have," says the nurse. "Apparently my drugs suck dick."

 

"Charming as ever, Jordan." Seeming to calm himself, he drops to his knees in front of her cut-up, black-and-blue legs and imbedded shrapnel. "Tell me what happened."

 

"You cocksucking fuckwad! You asslicking moron! You-" 

 

"Quit whining, Jordan."

 

"Quit- ugh!" She lets out a long, slow breath, and wipes away a tear.

 

"Will she live?" he asks the nurse.

 

"Yep." 

 

He looks back at her.

 

"Tell me," he says, and this time it's a request.

 

"I was about to come over to your place," she says, distracted by the feel of his long fingers curling gently around the back of her calf. "Then I got a distress signal on the scanner. Some merchant ship said it got hit by a comet, leaking life support- I figured it'd take about an hour to handle, sorry I didn't call. I left a note."

 

"You were late," he says, as if that should explain everything. "I assume from the wreckage that it was not a merchant ship?" Green tweezers materialize in his hand.

 

"It was a trap," she says. "A slaver- I think Trina. I went in to help with the warp core and they- they tried to gas me. It didn't work, but- they had a backup plan."

 

"What sort of "backup plan?"" He pulls out a piece of shrapnel. A new trickle of blood flows down her leg.

 

"Hostages," she says, barely audible. "Four little girls- they looked like that slave girl from Liberty, the green one with the whip marks who'd been raped by the fat man I punched. Why did you only let me punch him once?" She can't shut up, She wants to, but her mouth won't stop moving and she's dazed from the pain and the drugs. "God, Sinestro, I hate slavers, I fucking hate them-"

 

"We defeated the ones on Liberty," he says, and if he was anyone else she'd say his tone was soothing. "You defeated the ones here. We will defeat many more of them."

 

She looks down at his black and purple head.

 

"They killed them anyway," she whispers. "I did what they said, but they-"

 

"Hush, Jordan," he says, and he sounds so awkward she almost laughs. "It's fine."

 

"Your people skills are really shit, you know that?"

 

"How could I forget, what with how often you remind me?" he asks her feet rhetorically. "How did you escape?"

 

"Beat up the guards. Grabbed their keys. Beat up the captain. Grabbed my ring. Got shot at a bit. Shot back. Basically just being my awesome self."

 

He lets out a slightly faster than normal intake of breath. It's the weird Sinestro version of a snort.

 

"And your injuries?"

 

"A couple fuel tanks blew. And some of them wanted to have fun with the Lantern bitch while the impeller nodes were warming up, so the bruises are-"

 

Sinestro hisses. Seriously  _hisses,_  like a snake. She looks down at him, and his ears are plastered back like a cat and his lips are peeled back over his pointed teeth and his eyes are that awful black again and his voice is fucking scary when he rips out  _"they did not-"_  


 

 "No," she says, alarmed. "No, no, not that kind of fun, Sinny, they were the, um, the asexual lizard people, remember, the Laxatives?"

 

"The La'aks'rat'iv'es?" 

 

"Yeah, those. Jesus, Ness, get your mind out of the gutter."

 

He relaxes, slightly. "You should be more careful," he says, yanking bits of glass from her leg.

 

"I was careful."

 

"Have you looked at yourself recently?" he asks, as the nurse snorts from behind her.

 

She hasn't. "I'm fine."

 

"You're-" he chokes. "You are no longer permitted to use that word, understand? It doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to rational people."

 

"I am!"

 

"Bullshit," says the nurse bluntly. She produces a roll of bandages. "When you're done with her legs, wrap them up in that?"

 

"Are these  _bandages?_ " he asks, saying  _bandages_  like some people say _dog shit._  "Gods above, would you have me wash her wounds with alcohol next?"

 

"Sinny, I know this kind of runs contrary to your core personality, but try not to be a dick?"

 

"There a problem with bandages?" demands the nurse.

 

"Not at all, if you're still using flint and steel to start fires."

 

"Sinestro?"

 

"What?"

 

"That's a camera. Maybe be less insulting? If you can?"

 

"You're still using  _cameras?_ "

 

"Yeah, actually, we are. You jerk-off."

 

"Ahh. Lovely. Are you a reporter?"

 

"Umm... yeah?"

 

"Well, you're much less annoying than some other reporters I know."

 

"He's new, I think."

 

"I'm sorry," says the reporter. "But you're... purple."

 

"You're not any more  _intelligent_  than them, though."

 

"Ness, be nice. Purple, though, really? I always thought he was more pinkish."

 

"Fuchsia," offers the nurse.

 

"What the fuck?" says the reporter. 

 

"Reporters on my planet tend to be more specific."

 

"Umm... what are you?"

 

"He's a Korugarian," Hallie explains. "Think Vulcans, only angrier and without the cool seven-year-sex thingy."

 

"I am Sinestro," says Sinestro. "Kindly ignore Jordan, she's been given too many drugs."

 

"Five minutes ago, you were complaining about me not givin' her enough!"

 

"That was before I realized it would be better for public relations if it was believed this was not her actual personality."

 

"If you get to be an asshole, then I should get to be-"

 

"I am a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an organization dedicated to-"

 

"Should we be telling this to the government? I feel like we should be telling this to the government."

 

"You don't  _have_  a planetary government, much less a system-wide one."

 

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Primitive humans. Isn't there protocol for shit like this?"

 

"You... want to follow protocol."

 

"I can't ignore the rules if I don't know what they are." He's finished wrapping her right leg. She lets a grin creep across her face. "Hey, while you're down there, would you mind-"

 

"Don't you dare!"

 

"Jeez, Sinestro, mind out of the gutter. I was just gonna ask for a foot massage."

 

He changes the subject, and he's blushing and it's awesome. "Maybe we will speak to that United Nations organization you told me about. Perhaps we could make arrangements with your president."

 

"Sure, I'll just call him up and ask him to meet us for drinks."

 

"Or I could visit the White House," he says with exaggerated patience. 

 

"Yeah, that might work, too. Hey, wha'd'you mean,  _I_  can visit the White House?" 

 

"You are going to return to Oa and spend at least four hours in the infirmary. Even with quick-heal-"

 

"Like  _shit_  I'm going back to Oa!"

 

He looks vaguely annoyed. "Only for a day or so."

 

"I can't leave you alone to talk to the president! The men in black will kidnap you and store your unconscious, frozen body in Area 51!"

 

"...What exactly did you give her?" he asks the nurse.

 

"And where can  _I_  get some?" asks the reporter, with feeling.

 

"In fact, I shouldn't let you talk to  _anyone!_  You make  _terrible_  first impressions!"

 

At this point, he looks kind of uncomfortable. "Jordan, speaking of first impressions..." He glances at the reporter, and then steels himself.

 

She waits.

 

"I... feel I should apologize. Again. For-" he doesn't quite hesitate but it's close- "hitting you. In the face."

 

"You hit me all the time," she says blankly.

 

"When  _sparring,_ " he says. 

 

"We  _were_ sparring," she says slowly. "I tried to  _stab_  you."

 

"Yes, well-" he shrugs. "I just thought I'd- mention it. Again."

 

"Sinestro-"

 

"In any case," he draws himself up. "You will of course be returning briefly to Oa. I will speak to your President-"

 

"You'll get shot!"

 

"-and make arrangements-"

 

"I'll get flashie-thingied! Those things give you melanoma!"

 

"Jordan," he sighs.

 

She looks away. "I can't go, yet," she says. "There were homeless people in that warehouse, I saw the life signs when I was putting the pod down."

 

"They're dead," he says bluntly.

 

"I know," she says. "I scanned for life signs, nothing came up. I have to get the bodies."

 

"They're dead," he says again, patiently. "They don't care anymore."

 

"I care."

 

"That's absurd."

 

"It's a human thing, all right, Sinestro?" She is exhausted. "It's another one of those human things."

 

She goes to stand up- the nurse is finished with her back- and has to sit down right away. "I'm fine," she says, as the world spins sickeningly.

 

"You said that on Caracalla." 

 

"I was fine on Caracalla, too."

 

"You had internal bleeding."

 

"It was only a  _little_  internal bleeding."

 

He sighs. "I'll dig up the bodies."

 

"Really?"

 

"Really." 

 

She moves to stand.

 

"Don't get up yet," he says. She slumps back, exhausted.

 

"Hey," she says, suddenly. "I had something to show you."

 

He crouches in front of her again, lean and graceful and scarred as an alley cat, and maybe those drugs are better than she thought.

 

"What did you have to show me?" he asks gently.

 

She holds up a hand and concentrates. Two glowing green cubes appear, twirling gently around each other.

 

"I managed two," she says proudly.

 

"Well done, Jordan," he says, sincerely, and then ruins it by adding "I am sure two small cubes will make your enemies quail in fear."

 

"Fuck off," she says, grinning. His lips twitch back, and his eyes are that soft green color so different from the black of his anger.

 

There's quiet for a moment. 

 

"Do we have to wear the unitards?" she asks suddenly. "If we give some big speech at the U.N.?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Aw, come on!"

 

"We have to."

 

"Look, it's not that I don't like showing off my body, alright? I look awesome in this thing, as a general rule, and the view standing behind you's not bad either. But-"

 

"The Green Lantern uniform," he snaps, the tips of his ears flushing dark purple, "has been a symbol of hope and freedom in all corners of the galaxy for millennia."

 

"Yeah, well, here it's a lime green unitard. Let's get some human formal shit."

 

"No."

 

"Yes." 

 

"No."

 

"Yes."

 

"I'm not having this discussion, Jordan."

 

"Come on!"

 

"No."

 

"Please?" A thought occurs to her. "It's for cultural reasons! Some of the delegates come from countries where they don't let women wear  _pants_ , how do you think they'll react to a skintight-"

 

"If it puts them off balance, they'll be easier to negotiate with-"

 

"What are you, my pimp?"

 

"-and given that you once tried to convince me it was against your religion to get up before ten a.m., the likelihood that I'll believe  _anything_  you say to me about your culture is highly remote-"

 

"We're wearing normal clothes. Do you know how long it's been since I wore normal clothes in public?"

 

"We are not."

 

She pulls out her trump card. "Next pop culture night, I'll make you watch something terrible."

 

"I'll make you  _read_  something terrible."

 

"Monty Python."

 

" _The Lay of Isfanel_."

 

"Game of Thrones."

 

"Early Conulian poetry."

 

"Twilight."

 

" _The Saga of Aksaret the Bold_. All seven scrolls."

 

"Lady Gaga."

 

" _Notable Green Lanterns and How They Changed the Galaxies._ "

 

"Justin Beiber."

 

" _A Brief History of Korugarian Galactic Expansion._ "

 

"Fifty Shades of Gray."

 

"My old history textbook."

 

" _Porn._ " 

 

He twitches. "You wouldn't."

 

"I will watch it with you and imitate the noises, so help me god."

 

He groans. "Do politicians on your planet generally host those revolting little parties after speeches and such?"

 

"I don't know shit about politics, Sinestro, but I imagine they do."

 

"They do," says the reporter, still looking a little stunned.

 

"Then I shall wear whatever you want to that, all right?"

 

"Yay," she says. "Whoohoo." She stands up and immediately topples forward. Sinestro catches her. He's very warm.

 

"Thanks," she says.

 

"It's no trouble." 

 

They stand that way for several seconds.

 

"When you get home," he says suddenly, "there is a box for you in my quarters. And a plate of those honey-cakes you shovel down constantly."

 

"But you think birthdays are ridiculous," she says.

 

"It's not a birthday present."

 

"What's it for, then?"

 

He doesn't answer the question. "It isn't your birthday."

 

"My birthday's tomorrow."

 

"Celebrating one's day of birth is an absurd custom."

 

She allows her head to lean briefly against his chest.

 

"When you're done, will you go to my mother's house? Maybe get everybody else to head there? The reporters are probably beating down their doors by now."

 

"I will pick them up," he promises. "Bring me some supplies?"

 

"You're staying over?"

 

"I imagine we'll be busy here for a few days. No need to add an hour's commute time."

 

"Thanks," she says. "For catching me, I mean."

 

"Whenever you need me," he says. She wriggles out of his arms.

 

"Bye," she says, and floats up.

 

"You got it  _bad,_  boy," she hears the nurse say behind her. 

 

Hallie doesn't know what she's talking about.

* * *

They end up having to stay four days, waiting for the delegates of the U.N. to gather. Hallie and Sinestro sleep on her mother's couches, ten feet away from each other. She's gotten used to listening to his breathing (a tad faster than a human's) from all the hotel room's (and occasionally, tents) they've shared, and it's comforting to hear when she wakes up at night. They end up clearing the furniture in the sitting room away to the walls and sparring a few times- Jason watches in awe the second time and Sinestro shows him a few moves.

 

(Sinestro gets on surprisingly well with kids- not babies, babies hate him and she makes fun of him for it, but anything old enough to understand him and too young to realize he's an ass seems to like him.)

 

Her mom's house has three bedrooms. Shelby and Jim take one (and Jeez, she's ginormous!) and Carol and Tom get the other- both of them took two weeks leave. Jason sleeps on the couch in his Grandma's bedroom, and Jack and Janice have an air mattress in the basement.

 

She also has a sleeping partner. In Sinestro's box in his quarters was a small  _hathur_ cub- a Korugarian animal that is basically a six-limbed green cat that will grow to the size of a german shepard. ("You went to Korugar to get this for me." "Do you have a point, Jordan?") Sinestro assures her that it's species has been tame for countless millennia and is extraordinarily unlikely to kill her in her sleep. She names it Pistachio. She gets along horribly with Springsteen and sleeps on her face, occasionally peeing on her during the middle of the night. She also hisses and bites. Hallie doesn't think she's ever loved any birthday present so much in her life.

 

There are reporters actually camped out on her front lawn. When Sinestro and she go running, they charge through the group, jumping over tents and camera equipment, her laughing her head off at the thrill, and evade them by running through the large stretch of woodland that make up much of the area across the street. Sinestro rolls his eyes at this, and she pretends not to notice how he looks sideways at her heaving chest, her flushed cheeks.

 

Reactions to the confirmed existence of aliens are mixed, to say the least. Carol takes charge of research online, and then she and Sinestro team up (which is scary) and they have a family briefing in the front room, shutters closed tight so none of the reporters can see in.

 

(One of the reporters tried to break in, the first day, in the early morning hours when everyone was asleep. There was excellent footage of a shirtless (down, girl) Sinestro literally throwing him out of the house, and even  _more_  excellent footage of her running outside in a camisole and panties to restrain a furiously shrieking Pistachio, who had attached herself to a rather sensitive portion of the man's anatomy after he had landed. She hadn't been able to resist a little gloating.

 

"Serves you right, you little shit! You ever try and fuck with my family again and I'll  _feed_  her your balls!"

 

"Jordan."

 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming.")

 

"Alright," says Carol, looking businesslike and in-charge despite being in her pajamas, which cover a tad more than Hal's do. "Basically, we've got five groups. The ones that believe you exist and think you're awesome, the one's that believe you exist and that there's no way someone like you should be even remotely involved with the aliens, the ones that believe you exist and that humanity in general should be in no way involved with the aliens, the ones that believe you exist and are reserving judgement until you talk at the U.N., and the ones that think this whole thing is some giant government conspiracy.

 

"The ones that believe you exist and are awesome comprise about thirty percent of the U.S. and about twenty-five percent of the rest of the world. They want interviews, endorsement deals, and a lot of them want to have sex with you, particularly after the Pistachio debacle."

 

Hallie snorts. "Who doesn't?"

 

Every person at the table raises a hand, with the exception of Shelby and Tom. "What?" asks Shelby, when they stare. " _She_  can't get me pregnant."

 

(Sinestro raised his hand, and that  _doesn't_  annoy her.)

 

"The second group's about ten percent. They want to set up some kind of bureaucracy to deal with alien stuff. The third group's also ten of the U.S, but nearly thirty of the world. They're mainly religious people who're freaked out by this whole thing- and your little "gods above" comment on the video didn't help," she says to Sinestro.

 

He sighs. "Would it help if I explained that my people advanced beyond religion several millennia ago?"

 

" _No,_ " says everyone at once.

 

"Isn't that a little high on approval though?" Hal asks.

 

"It is, actually. I think it was the video that reporter made of you two- it's been translated into every language known to man and posted all over the place. You managed to establish that, A., he wasn't a monster, and was actually a fairly normal person-" she nods towards Sinestro- "and, B., that your personal interaction was pretty amusing. You also, incidentally, convinced a good ninety percent of the planet that you guys are doing it, which-"

 

"Hell, you managed to convince  _me_ ," says Mom.

 

"Mom!"

 

"Yeah, why  _aren't_  you doing it?" asks Shelby.

 

"Shelby!" yelps Jim. "That's  _our sister_ -"

 

"Well  _your sister_  should be getting laid-"

 

"Shut up!" Hallie shouts. She turns to Carol. "Keep going."

 

"Well, it's- made a lot of people mad," she says awkwardly, not looking at Sinestro. "People think it's kind of- weird."

 

"Weird how?" asks Hallie, a trickle of something black and icy running down her spine. She looks at Sinestro, who twitches an eyebrow to say he doesn't know what's going on.

 

"Well, there have been accusations of- well, it's the religious groups mostly."

 

"Ms. Ferris," says Sinestro. "Get to the point."

 

She bites her lip. "Some people have been saying it would be- wrong."

 

"Wrong how?"

 

"Like... bestiality."

 

Hallie gets up, throws open the door, and leaps off the porch. She's gone in a split second, and spends the rest of the night beating up meteors until Sinestro finds her and drags her home.

* * *

The talk at the U.N. goes well, or rather, the actual talk goes well, and the utter fiasco that is the lead-up and the party afterwards are not her fault.

For one, there's a crowd of protesters out on the lawn, holding signs depicting her extremely doped-up faced and labeled with things like HARLOT OF SATAN! and DEVIL'S WHORE! which she thinks might be the name of some really weird TV series.

 

"Wait," she asks Sinestro as they float slowly towards the roped-off area next to the door, "If they think I'm the "Loose Woman of Lucifer"-" and she can't actually say that with a straight face- "and they think we're screwing, then that makes you-"

 

"Do shut up, Jordan."

 

She laughs.

 

There are only two reporters by the place set aside for them to land- a small woman with a mildly crazed expression and a large man in flannel with a worried look on his face. 

 

"Lois Lane, Daily Planet," says the small woman. She has an extremely rapid-fire voice- a machine gun with a Metropolis accent. "What do you say to the various protesters who say your relationship is immoral and akin to bestiality?"

 

"What do  _you_  say to that?" she snaps back.

 

"Jordan," warns Sinestro.

 

Lois Lane raises an eyebrow. "I say, no comment, but I haven't threatened to watch porn with  _my_  alien."

 

She snickers. "Fair enough. I'd say- go fuck yourselves."

 

"We can't exactly put that in a paper, Miss Jordan," says the tall guy apologetically.

 

"She'd say that we are not engaged in a romantic relationship and that it would be of little concern to them if we were." Sinestro interrupts

 

"No, seriously, if I could talk to one of them right now, I'd say- go fuck yourself."

 

Lois Lane laughs. "Oh, I like you, Hallie Jordan." She scribbles on a notepad. "Don't suppose you'd care to give me an exclusive?"

 

Hallie looks at Sinestro. He sighs heavily. "While I fear the chaos you two could cause in close proximity-"

 

-"Jeez, Ness, you're such a drama queen"-

 

-"we will eventually have to speak with a reporter. I believe you are based in Metropolis, Miss Lane?"

 

"Yep. Seven o'clock tomorrow evening?"

 

"Of course."

 

And then the mingled wave of protesters and reporters surrounds them. The tall man- and damn, she didn't catch his name- wriggles in between Lois and a man who looks kind of like Pred Fhelps- oh shit, that is Pred Fhelps, the freaking Eastboro Baptist Church is here- and presses Lois up against the rope so she doesn't get trampled. Everyone's chanting some slogan or other and G. Gordon Godfrey (asshole) is drawling at her and Cat Grant is asking something-

 

She and Sinestro form the vaguely see-through green dome at the same time. G. Gordon Godfrey walks into it and she feels a rush of satisfaction at the blood flowing from his nose.

 

"So," she asks (all the crowd's noise is muffled and she feels like she's underwater) "do we just shove them out of our way or do we cut the barrier and fly through the doors?"

 

"Drop it and run," he orders, and she says "one, two, three-"

 

They drop it and move like lightning, but a thick-set, heavy jawed redneck type (one of the Eastboro idiots) reaches out and snatches her hair. 

 

"Ouch!" she yelps, and kicks him in the groin- he's on the ground clutching himself and the noise doubles, and Pred Fhelps snatches her wrist in a bony claw-like hand.

 

"You little whore," he hisses. "You will burn in hell-"

 

She twists her arm away with little difficulty but another thick-set man snatches her other wrist and she takes a deep, deep breath-

 

And then a purple hand clamps down on the man's arm and twists and there's a  _snap-_  and then they're both staggering backwards a little-

 

"That foul animal will join you in the pit!" shrieks Pred Fhelps, and she spits a few choice phrases at him before Sinestro drags her into the building.

* * *

Sinestro gives the traditional speech, describing their abilities, purposes, and giving a brief history of the Green Lantern Corps, (and he could do this public-speaking thing for a living, he kicks ass at it) while she kind of stands in the background and tries not to stare at his ass. Then it's her turn, and she gives a fairly decent summation of getting kidnapped by the ring, finding Abin Sur, going to Oa for what she describes as "some training" and then coming home to defend against Parallax- in her version, though, it was only while Sinestro marshaled the rest of the Lanterns to come help.

 

The Q&A session afterwards... gets a little complicated.

 

"Why have we not already been informed of your existence?" demands the Russian delegate. 

 

"To be honest-" Hallie shrugs. "I didn't think of it. As a general rule, we don't reveal our existence to worlds that haven't created faster-than-light space travel- for those of you who are nerds, it's kind of like the Prime Directive- and while a few exceptions have been made in the past, it's always tended to cause problems- I'm sure all of you've seen the morons outside."

 

"But," adds Sinestro, "as Miss Jordan's predilection for attracting trouble appears to be a species-wide trait"- that gets a few laughs- "I thought it best to tell all now."

 

" _You_  thought it best," says a delegate from Kazakhstan. "What sort of authority do you possess among these "Green Lanterns?""

 

"None," Hallie answers. "He's just bossy." 

 

Sinestro gives her an exasperated glare. "I possess no official authority- no more than any other Lantern, at any rate- but I am widely acknowledged as a senior member of the Corps- I arrange deployments, confer with the Guardians, lead squadrons for the more dangerous or complex situations- that sort of thing."

 

"He's a beat cop, but with more paperwork. And we've got kind of a mentor program, so he's showing me the ropes."

 

The delegate nods in understanding and sits down.

 

"What does this mean for Earth?" asks the British delegate.

 

"Whatever you want it to mean," says Hal Jordan with a shrug. "You could decide you don't want trespassers in your area of space- which is smaller than you might think, given the Martian thingy- or you could open up interstellar trade for technology and sh- crap like that. The Corps employs a whole department to give commerce advice to developing star systems. I gotta warn you, though- by interstellar law, nobody can sell you lethal weapons until we manage to create a single planetary government."  

 

"Why not?" demands the U.S. delegate.

 

"Because you'll  _use_  them to  _shoot_  each other," Hal explains, like she's talking to a small child.

 

Sinestro stirs beside her. "This law was made twenty-four of your years ago," he says, "after the Ellak'duul reduced their formerly lush planet to a smoking nuclear wasteland. There were fifty-one thousand survivors, and the Ellak'duul were vastly more populous than yourselves."

 

Nobody has a ready response to that. "Granted," Sinestro continues, "You are well on your way to reducing your planet to a wasteland yourselves-"

 

"Ness," she warns. There is silence.

 

"What exactly is... our area of space?" ventures the female Italian delegate tentatively. Sinestro answers, and he falls into that oddly contented "professor mode"-

 

"The area of three million kilometers surrounding the Earth at any time, as well as the path of Earth's orbit, are sovereign human territory- I suggest the United Nations continue to deal with decisions made regarding that. Had your system only a single inhabited planet, everything in it would belong to you, but the martians have equal rights to mining opportunities, colonization efforts, and the like- any movement on the other celestial bodies must be agreed upon among your peoples, with the exception of your moon, which is yours- and you also own the space one million kilometers surrounding that. Now, the sovereign  _system_  territory is a different litter of  _k'takas_  entirely. Any space ship which enters your system must make himself known to both the martians and yourselves within ten days, though Lanterns are traditionally exempt, and while you are permitted to lease mining or colonization rights-"

* * *

They go home- the crowd of reporters hasn't abated at all, if anything, it's bigger- and change. Sinestro looks quite dashing in his tux, a dark green bow tie complementing his eyes- which are irritated light green when he first notices Hal, but darken slowly as they take in her and her dress.

 

Even though she knows she looks ridiculous- she wears enough green as it is, and makeup and high heels make her look absurd, but Carol insisted-  something about the way he's looking at her sets something burning in her lower belly. 

 

They go to the after party, and he offers her his arm as they walk in. They don't even have to walk around the room- the instant they get there, people swamp them. She smiles and nods for about thirty minutes, trying to resist the temptation to punch a few leering politicians in the face, and then Sinestro says some magic words and the delegates evaporate, leaving them to walk over to the refreshments table.

 

"The Russian guy was totally looking at my boobs," she confides. "Not that I blame him, they are pretty fantastic, but still."

 

Sinestro snorts (or rather, exhales slightly faster than usual) into his champagne glass.

 

"I don't know why I wanted to wear this," she grumbles as her heels pinch at her feet. "Those drugs must have been  _really_  good. I probably look ridiculous."

 

He raises an eyebrow. "You are not serious."

 

"What do you mean, I'm not serious? I look like a bear stuffed in a tutu. I don't  _do_  fancy shit."

 

"Jordan," he says, amazed and exasperated, "you look-"

 

Then the side of the building explodes.

 

Later, she'll find out that the charge was set by a relatively new terrorist cell who believed the very existence of aliens to be a crime against nature. Later, she'll find out that they drove a pick-up truck filled with explosives straight through the glass of the front door. Later, she'll hear that fifty people died and another hundred were injured, and that most of the injured lived because she and Sinestro carried them out and flew them to the hospital. Later, she will learn that she was on her third trip back when she fell onto the live, thrashing wire that stopped her heart.

* * *

-there is only dark-

 

- _"Jordan, Jordan"_ -

 

-she is sinking into syrupy blackness-

 

- _"Jordan! Jordan, wake up!_ "-

 

-she cannot move-

 

- _"Hallie! Hallie!"_ - 

* * *

There is light.

 

And color and heat and noise. The world is spinning. Sirens scream in the background, joined by people.

 

Slowly, things come into focus. A man (pale, fleshy,  _wrong_ ) is... kissing her? 

 

No. CPR. She feels her lungs expand, and coughs abruptly, forcing her arm to move, to lift. He sits back. She turns her head, slowly, carefully- every muscle aches.

 

She is surrounded by television cameras and reporters. People gawk down at her and speak in voices that hurt her ears. Sinestro is being restrained by several buff EMT's and firemen- two have bleeding noses and one lays unconscious at his feet. As she watches, he struggles away from them and practically dives at her.

 

"Hey," she croaks. "Help me sit up?" His eyes are black. He's almost shaking. He helps her sit up.

 

"You have dirt," she says. "In your mustache."

 

"Don't ever do that again," he whispers hoarsely, and then seizes her by the shoulders. "Don't ever do that again!"  

 

"I'm-"

 

"If you say you are fine, I will kill you!" he shouts, and actually shakes her, so hard her brains rattle. "Don't ever do that again!"

 

"Quit yelling-"

 

"DON'T EVER FUCKING DO THAT TO ME AGAIN!" he roars. "I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU IF YOU EVER FUCKING DO THAT TO ME AGAIN!"

 

"Are you swearing? You never swear- also, wouldn't killing me kind of negate the whole purpose of-"

 

"Shut up!"

 

" _You_  shut up, you self-righteous prick!"

 

"You... you reckless, unobservant, slow-witted imbecile!"

 

"I'm fine!"

 

"Do not say you are  _fucking_  fine!" he spits, and his ears are back and his eyes are the color of night, barely a speck of green-

 

"I  _am!_ "

 

"Shut the  _fuck_  up," he hisses, and kisses her so hard their teeth clack together. 

 

It's not romantic. She's sprawled out on cracked asphalt, they're surrounded by people (and cameras, oh shit) and she probably still tastes like crab cakes from earlier.

 

Nevertheless, she sees stars. Though that could just be the oxygen deprivation talking.

 

When they separate, both of them are breathing hard.

 

"You know, I've heard a lot of pick-up lines," she says. "Shut the fuck up is a new one, though."

 

He glares, relaxing slightly. "If your heart ever stops beating again-"

 

"What, you'll kiss me? Not a great threat, Ness. Granted, it was a bit slobbery, but you've got real potential-"

 

"Shut  _up_ , Jordan."

 

"What happened to Hallie?"

 

"She opened her  _mouth_."

 

Hal laughed. Just threw back her head and laughed like she hadn't a care in the world, and Sinestro smiled a little too as he let out a long sigh.

 

"Does this mean you'll tell me your first name?"

 

"That's- what is the phrase?- second date material."

 

"Third is sex, right?"

 

" _Do_  stop talking," he said, and he was blushing and grinning, actually grinning like a loon, which Hallie attributed to her mad kissing skillz.

 

"Hey, does our equipment even match up?"

 

"Shut up, Jordan!" 

 


End file.
